


the edge in your affection broke my skin

by b4dide4



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-06-30 08:16:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15747819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b4dide4/pseuds/b4dide4
Summary: A phone call sometime in 2014 ...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Um. So. This is a first. Obligatory “what the hell am I doing?!” disclaimer and all credit (and blame) to the prompt-giver, who knows who she is and exactly what she did. 
> 
> Also, I haven’t written fic (yes, this is entirely fictional fiction wheee!) in mumblemumble years, so kindly forgive my liberal use of sentence fragments and comma splices.

It’s something she’d always told herself she’d get used to. Be ready for. She expected it, after all. Had spent years mentally preparing, working out approximate timelines for when it would come and how it would change her life. 

The distance. The … drift.

She knew what it felt like to lose him quickly – fucking legs, fucking stupid teenage boy brains. Fucking fear.

She knew what it felt like to get him back in tiny, tentative, text-message steps and post-performance outbursts that warmed her in ways she’d never admit but that the camera always seemed to catch.

What she didn’t know, what she could hardly even conceive of (even though she’d spent years saying it was inevitable), was what it would be like to lose him by degrees.

It had seemed even more impossible to her during Sochi. Because the two of them there? That was something she’d never expected.

Losing, yes. She’d expected to lose. She’d even known he would finally come around and see – feel – what she’d been telling him for months, and that then it would be them against the world. United. Finally.

She’d also known it still wouldn’t be enough. (When she was honest with herself.)

But feeling like they were on the cliff’s edge of everything, everything, she’d never let herself want? She hadn’t expected that at all. Hadn’t expected how every touch would shimmer with something that felt like electricity and possibility and promise. How he would linger on her face longer than he ever had – eyes still on her even when the crowds and cameras weren’t. How he would whisper reassurance and laughter into her neck. How, after the short, he’d seemed bright and brilliant and so entirely composed of joy his skin could barely contain it. Most of all, she hadn’t expected to feel like it was because of her.

Which is why it was like a fatal blow when the kiss she’d felt building since they’d touched down in Russia landed on someone else’s lips. Someone who hadn’t fought coaches and insecurities and her own fucking body to stay by his side.

It’s the anger she felt then – that she’d clung to at first to drown out the pain before quickly, responsibly tamping down – that has her growling “Fuck you, Scott” into her phone now. Because, no. He is does not get to do this again.

He’d drifted out of her life one unreturned call, one “left on read” text at a time until it had been months since they’d seen each other, weeks since they’d talked. There was a creeping, terrifying finality in how gradual it was. Until suddenly it wasn’t.

And maybe that was worse.

He’d texted on a random Tuesday (a full month and two days after her last text) to say that he and Kaitlyn were heading to Molly’s and she should come if she was home. She was. So she did. Because she missed him more than she dreaded having to watch him happy with someone else. Again. Always.

After that, he hadn’t let up. Regularly wanting her on call to play third wheel. But soon enough, she started to feel like he was at least a little bit hers again. That she could ask him for things like he was asking her. That she could expect him to keep promises.

But then he’d skipped out on TIFF (“I have to go to K’s match, T. I owe her. I haven’t been pulling my weight lately.”) Giving her two days’ notice after weeks of planning – and one afternoon spent doubled over at his antics (“Tessa, be serious this is FASHION! So childish.”) with a stylist she’d pulled strings to get them.

Thankfully Ryan was free and willing and if she imagined her partner’s fists seizing up when he saw the red carpet photos, who could blame her? The dress she’d bought, almost entirely because of the way Scott’s jaw had worked under his skin when she’d come out of the dressing room, stayed in her closet (next to the suit that made her palms sweat).

To make it up to her, Scott had demanded a double date the next time Kaitlyn was in town. His treat – which didn’t seem like one to her, but she knew he felt guilty and that he was trying. Had tried at least, until Kaitlyn’s flight was cancelled and suddenly it was “You and Ryan should keep the reservation. Have fun.”

She’d told him he should still come with them. That it wouldn’t be weird. Had pushed it until he finally admitted Kaitlyn wanted to Skype. And that’s when she’d lost it. Counting down on fingers he couldn’t see the number of times she’d sat next to an empty chair opposite them, enumerating how willing she’d been to play an audience of one to their love story.

“So, every time I’ve just wanted the two most important people in my life to spend time together, it’s been a hassle for you? Do I have that right, T?”

“How important am I if you won’t even– ?”

She stops herself, gritting her teeth to keep from actually yelling (because they don’t do that) and it’s then that the sound of the doorbell registers.

She takes a deep, centering breath and tries to let go of the anger clawing at her throat as she opens the door to Ryan and gestures for him to follow her to her room, where the shoes she picked (yesterday) are still lying by the bed. “Scott. He’s cancelling,” she mouths, pointing at the phone and rolling her eyes … and only then realizing he’s still being loud on his end.

“... just haven’t been saying anything for weeks? Wait. Who are you talking to?” Scott sounds tinny now and so very far away.

Ryan smirks, snorting lightly, and it makes her angrier. He doesn’t get to be a prick about her partner. Who is Ryan to fucking snort?

So, great, now she’s mad at both of them. Well, mad at Scott. Annoyed at Ryan. Mad at herself for still feeling protective after everything. And suddenly completely unwilling to go another second without doing something about every impulse Sochi had made her feel (let her hope for) … unwilling to go another second without letting Scott know, hear, exactly what it feels like to be peripheral.

“I’m done.”

She’s looking hard at Ryan as she says it into the speaker. But she doesn’t see him. All she sees is Scott across Canada House with Kaitlyn on his lap, his face buried in her neck. It’s with that thought that she puts the phone down on top of the book she’s half finished with, careful not to knock over her glasses, and thanks any god listening that she decided to wear the dress with the full front zipper. Then thanks them again that the zipper is loud.

She’s out of the dress in two moves, out of her panties in one more and Ryan’s “Fuck, Tessa” has her smirking as she shoves his jacket down his arms and pulls his shirt out of his pants. She undoes his belt, snaking it through the loops, dragging it along with her as she settles back onto the bed.

Ryan is quick to take care of the rest of his clothes, and if she relishes that he’s going about it very noisily – grunting with the effort and whispering expletives as he leers at her – well, that’s between her, the gods and never, ever her therapist.

He’s about to climb onto the bed, already at half mast, when she scoots to the edge and stops him with her mouth, open and sloppy, on his stomach. She spits into her palm, careful to turn her head toward the phone as she does, and works him until he’s curving up toward his belly. Then she pulls him to her and moans her way down his length, humming and wetly working her tongue, before sealing her lips and slowly pulling back and off of him with the loudest pop she can manage.

“You’re so good with your mouth,” he grits out. And she’s never been under the illusion that her feelings for Ryan run very deep, but in that moment, she loves him.

She goes to dive back in, but his arms and hotly whispered “I won’t last” lead her back into the pillows. He reaches for her nightstand then, and in a moment of lightning-bolt panic she thinks he’ll hang up the phone. That he saw what she did. That Scott won’t hear. Instead, he opens the drawer and pulls out a condom. The sound of him tearing open the foil is thunder alongside her own heartbeat in her ears.

Ryan climbs on top of her then and she lets him feel like he’s running things for long enough that he’s slow and pliant when she shifts diagonally on the bed. He follows her, chasing her mouth, and she uses his distraction to flip him onto his back and sling a leg over his hips. She sits up and takes hold of his cock in a single motion and is sinking down when she catches sight of light bouncing off tempered glass.

It would seem like a calculated move to anyone psychoanalyzing her, but it’s really not until she sees the glint of the bedside lamp on her phone screen that she realizes what she did. How she’d turned them. So that she’d be able to see the phone. To not just think about him hearing, but to see the evidence. If, of course, he hadn’t hung up the minute he realized what she was doing, which he definitely had.

Before she can think too hard about it, damn herself too much, she starts moving. Riding a cock she imagines is someone else’s. Running her hands up her stomach to her neck and back down over her breasts, pausing to work her nipples and grind harder. She’s letting out stage-whisper gasps and keening whimpers by the time she slides one hand back down to rub tight circles against her clit, pretending the fingers on her are someone else’s too … longer, heavier, more calloused, more tender. And soon, she’s forgotten the phone and she’s louder than she ever lets herself get.

*************

One of the things that’s sort of humiliating but also handy about Ryan is how reliably he passes out after he comes. This time, she’s glad for it, because it lets her reach for her phone – to turn it off (not to see if Scott’s still there), because she’s a bit ashamed and powering it down is easier than cleansing it in holy fire. But when she hits the home button, she sees that the call’s still active.

Her ears start to fill with static and her chest flushes. She tells herself he probably threw the phone across the room in disgust and lost it under the couch or something. But her rationalizing doesn’t stop her from bringing it up to her ear. Doesn’t stop her from holding her breath so she can hear with perfect clarity the harsh, sporadic huffs on the other end.

Somehow, he knows she’s there.

“T …”

“Oh my god,” she sobs in a whisper, immediately mortified and hot all over at having done this. At wanting to do this.

“T … Jesus. I’m … I– ”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers so urgently she startles herself with it and turns to check she hasn’t woken Ryan.

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t …” he sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m an asshole. God,” she says after a beat. “You don’t owe me anything.”

There’s a pause then. And she feels herself age ten years in the time he takes before responding.

“I owe you everything.”

And after that, she can’t feel at all.

“Goodnight, T,” he breathes and disconnects.


	2. and we opened up our hearts and we could change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other end of that phone call sometime in 2014 ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has given this (ridiculous work of fiction) a read, and left a comment or kudos, and wanted more. You're all gems. 
> 
> And extra special monster thanks to my prompter and enabler. Who is now my beta. And who still knows exactly who she is/what she did/etc.

He’d decided she was right the week before they left for Sochi, but he didn’t tell her until they were in the air and the rest of the cabin was asleep.

“Typical,” she’d smirked. “Finally admitting it at the last possible minute with no witnesses.”

“T. I’m so sor-- ”

“Nope. Stop it.” She’d turned in her seat to face him before giving his left bicep a light punch. “I knew you’d get there. And I know how much loyalty means to you.” She’d fixed him with a look then, one that reflected sandbags and mops and (second) hospital rooms back at him. “And Marina was loyal to us for a long time.”

That look and her reassurance had him raising the armrest between them up so he could tuck her into his chest. Letting his relief melt into her. Letting her strength revive him.

“I owe you,” he’d breathed against her hair, before closing his eyes and settling back with her.

And just before he’d succumbed to sleep to the sound of her contented sigh and the warmth of her firm against him, he felt himself step up to that edge they never (ever) talked about, the edge of ... everything. Ready to step off.

But then they lost.

Really, he lost. Because he didn’t listen, because he didn’t trust and because he didn’t deserve it. And so he didn’t deserve her. He’d never felt smaller in his life than up on that podium, hoping his grimace made for a passable smile and wishing for nothing more than to drop to her feet and beg forgiveness.

She’d given him so much. So, so much. And he couldn’t even give her faith. Couldn’t give her gold.

He’d started punishing himself as soon as they were out from under the lights, quitting cold the liberties he’d been granting himself since raising that armrest. Stepping deliberately back from that edge. Running from it.

She hadn’t noticed right away. Even the duller shine of silver was enough to keep them surrounded and distracted by people and praise as they made their way to their families and Canada House. But he could tell exactly how aware she was of this sudden shift in him when she grabbed for his hand only for him to splay his fingers wide and raise them up to tug at the back of his firmly fixed hat. He could see the question in her eyes. Could see her answer it for herself before looking down and away.

He’d stopped letting himself touch her in the time it took to work their way through some media and across the village. But making himself stop thinking about … everything had proved harder. Because he’d had a plan. One he’d formulated only the night before they left, just hours before getting on the plane, but one he’d already been very attached to. He was going to ask her out. On a proper date. To the makeshift McDonald’s for at least two orders apiece worth of the grease-griddled, deep-fried crap they hadn’t been able to touch in months. Was going to ask her to dance with him at Canada House. Was going to kiss her and mean the shit out of it. In front of everyone. After they won.

But they didn’t.

So to keep himself from touching her and thinking about her and feeling the pain of having let her down in a thousand little ways and now in the biggest, most public, most important way … he drank. And he’d slung his arms around all of their teammates and got into loud discussions about Canada’s odds in every event left to finish and, before long, found himself with a lapful of cute, funny curler with a smile as bright as her laugh and with hair too many shades too light for him to ever let his eyes go unfocused and just … imagine.

One of Kaitlyn’s teammates had her leaning half off of him for a medal selfie when he caught familiar movement in the corner of his eye. He’d turned. She’d been beautiful and impeccably casual and smiling so big, but he could see the luster missing from her eyes. Had known he took it. So, he’d quickly turned back to Kaitlyn, who had resettled herself post-picture and was informing him that he smelled like he took a bath in Molson. “And you smell like the ice,” he’d said before diving into her neck to see if she tasted like it too.

He could feel Tessa’s eyes on him, on them, from her spot at the bar. And he knew she knew. That she’d recognized exactly what all of the touching and looks of the past several days had meant. That she understood exactly what he was taking back from her in that moment.

But he wonders if he didn’t feel the loss of it even more than she did.

After they’d gotten back, after the post-Olympics media commitments died down and so did their texts, it had taken him months to stop missing her enough to feel like he could see her again. But the minute he’d felt ready (on day three of Kaitlyn’s second visit to his parents’), he’d told K they should really head into London because there was an actual bar scene there. And he’d texted Tessa before his girlfriend had even said yes. 

He’d spotted T the minute she passed through the door, looking tentative under freshly darkened hair (he refused to acknowledge the thrill that zipped through him that she was still matching hers to his). When they’d hugged in greeting it had taken everything in him not to pull her down into the chair, but he figured it would’ve been awkward to make her play third wheel from his lap. But he’d managed to shake it off and the night had gone so, so well. Well enough for him to want to repeat it, and for T to keep letting him. And those times all went well enough that eventually they were hanging out alone again, and he found himself in a private dressing room watching Tessa look first at her reflection and then into his eyes in the mirror, wanting his approval on a tight black dress that shouldn’t have had his nails digging near-bloody crescents into his palms. (But it did.)

That’s when he ran again. And why he’s getting an earful of “Fuck you, Scott” now.

Tessa’s mad. And he understands why. But this time he has a legit excuse (and not just fear or shame). Kaitlyn’s flight was delayed and she’s stressed and just wants her boyfriend to stay in and Skype with her. He doesn’t examine closely why Tessa has to drag that information out of him. But the why of that is probably the same thing that has him lashing out, trying to make her feel bad and getting dangerously close to yelling. She goes quiet while he rants and he’s just about to be scared he’s sent her retreating into herself when he hears her whisper to someone (fucking Ryan) and can’t hold back a pissy “Who are you talking to?”

There’s a pause then. And he can almost feel a shift in the air around him before she finally speaks.

Her decisive “I’m done” is still ringing in his ears when the sound of a zipper slices through his brain. Somehow Ryan’s (fuck Ryan) reaction is all he needs to know that Tessa’s naked now and he should be hanging up. (Why isn’t he hanging up?!) Too many seconds and too many Ryan sounds (fucking fuck Ryan) later, he hears her spit -- almost like she did it at the phone -- and he realizes she meant for him to hear this. That maybe she’s just as bad for trying to make him listen as he is for not being able to stop.

He can tell by the timbre of her voice that she’s performing. For him. Jesus. It’s so fucked up. And he should be livid, but mostly he’s shocked. For all his talk of people underestimating her during the Carmen season, for all he knows firsthand that she can be crude and carnal and crack jokes that make him blush … even for all of that, he still keeps her wrapped in cotton in his mind’s eye when it comes to sex. Only rarely ever let (lets) his mind wander to her shape when chasing down bliss inside his own palm (inside his own girlfriends). And he resolutely does not think about her with other men. So the fact that she’s doing this, taking it this far has him in free fall. A bone-deep, lizard-brained rush of heat is boiling through him that should have him throwing his phone against a wall, but instead has his knuckles going white around it while he rubs his free hand back and forth on his thigh.

He’s not even aware he’s doing it until one sweep is far enough up and right that he grazes his length and, shit, he’s mostly hard. He shifts his hand back down his thigh and grips the muscle there to keep from gripping something else.

She’s theatrically gasping, punctuating it with high whines, and he should hate her a little for it. Instead, he just wishes she sounded like herself. That she was there with him and he could tell her to cut the bullshit because he knows there’s no way she sounds like that when she— (God. He still can’t even think it with skin slapping and the wet sound of her sex in his ear.) “Fucks.” He forces himself to say it out loud. Hopes she didn’t hear and goes back to imagining her in front of him so he could tell her how much he wishes he knew what she sounds like for real. How much he desperately, achingly wants to find out. Wishes she was there, because if she was, he thinks he could learn her sounds so quickly, draw them out of her like honey from a tipped jar. Thinks he might never want to hear anything else.

He realizes he has himself in hand at the same moment her voice breaks -- like it does sometimes when she’s tired or when she’s laughing too hard -- and then the gasps and whines are replaced by something more like (damn his traitorous, cheesy-ass brain) music. This is her. He’s hearing her now. And he wonders briefly what changed before his hand starts moving faster to match her rhythm. To find their unison.

After what feels like years but was probably seconds, he hears her finish with a sharp, toneless inhale that stutters into a low, languid “mmm.” And it’s that sound that stills his hand. Because he knows that sound. Has heard it only a scant handful of times, but those times were enough. Times when his hand slipped too high or too low or gripped too hard (just hard enough). He knows that sound from the time his nose actually brushed against her when they’d had to stop their rotational lift for Carmen dead to avoid a crash. He’d lost it, though, the sound of her, to the adrenaline and the other skaters and the crowd. Tamped it down for the girlfriend sitting in the stands. But he knows that sound. He knows even if he’d never started touching himself, he would’ve come from that sound alone.

And that’s when he imagines it was him she was just riding (because he could tell she was on top). That he’d lifted one hand to her breasts, slid the other to her stomach, stretching his thumb to her clit. Imagines that his own hands are her heat and that he’d pulled her down to swallow the end of that “mmm” and then come with her flush against him, warm and tight and consuming.

When he floats back to Earth, he’s lying back on the couch with his sweatpants half off, a mess on his shirt and his phone still clutched almost painfully to his ear while he pants into it.

He’s about to say her name to the empty air when he hears her gasp.

Her “Oh my god” is half-sobbed and it shocks him how quickly he’s gone from angry to aroused to protective tonight because his first thought is to stop her from being mean to herself.

“T … Jesus. I’m … I– ”

“I’m sorry,” abruptly cuts into his thoughts before he can find words for them.

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t …” he sighs. “I’m sorry.” He tries to continue, but she’s already going again.

“I’m an asshole. God, you don’t owe me anything.”

And no, that’s wrong. She’s so, so wrong.

“I owe you everything,” he breathes before feeling his phone buzz with the incoming Skype call. And he only hates himself a little as he ignores it to whisper “Goodnight, T.”

*************

It’s ink dark out and he’s been standing on her porch for 15 minutes by the time he finally forces his hand up to knock.

The house stays quiet and still for a long time after and he briefly wonders if Ryan is still there even though there’s no car but his own in the driveway. He’s turned away to double check when the lock tumbles and the knob turns. When he looks back, she’s there, in a shirt he knows is his and little else, staring at his chest.

He reaches out to take her face in his hands and lift her eyes to his, but she keeps them down, hidden.

So he bends to gather her in his arms and pull her up and against him, just off her feet, so their faces are level. She looks at him then, eyes swimming, face pink, hands on his shoulders. There is a long beat and he holds his breath, feeling like he’s waiting for a song transition in one of their programs.

When the tension and her eyes and everything he feels for her become too much, he kisses her nose and she stifles a tiny sob before swinging her legs up and around his waist.

He walks them through the open door, closing and locking it, before carrying her up the stairs and into her room.

He lays her on the bed, returning her to the spot it looks like she just left, and kicks off his shoes and pulls off his hoodie before following her in.

He takes a deep breath and the smell of fabric softener lets him know she changed the sheets. That makes him smile in a way it absolutely shouldn’t. Just like he absolutely shouldn’t have wanted nothing more than to be near her tonight after what she did.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says finally, edging a hand toward one of hers. “It was too quiet.” With that, he drags her into him, tips an ear to her lips, and falls asleep to the sound of her.


End file.
